dev tools

Jim Coplien and Bob Martin debate test-driven development and unit testing in an InfoQ video that grew out of a JAOO 2007 dispute. They also touch on design and architecture.

A panel conversation with Stewart Brand at Ethereum's Devcon4, where he recounts his life and work 'hacking civilization' and discusses the role of institutions in decentralization.

Dwarkesh Patel interviews Andy Matuschak on how he learns, why memorization matters for understanding, and why most learning tools fail. The conversation also covers handling confusion and the role of tutoring.

GitHub interviews Linus Torvalds on twenty years of Git, from its creation in about ten days as a Linux kernel tool to its role in modern software development. He discusses technical decisions, community contributions and the project's philosophy.

Steve Yegge is interviewed at Google's Kirkland office about the birth, growth and future of his Rhino on Rails project, a Rails clone on the Rhino JavaScript engine, and other web development topics.

A Google Developers Q&A in which Blink engineering leads and the PM answer the community's top questions about the new Blink rendering engine forked from WebKit.

A 2023 University of Toronto conversation between Geoffrey Hinton and Fei-Fei Li on responsible AI development. They look back at the history of deep learning and ImageNet and discuss the ethics and risks of AI.

Brian Kernighan explains how grep came to be, written overnight by Ken Thompson, and how it got its name from the ed command g/re/p. He also covers the lineage from QED to ed that led to it.

TED curator Chris Anderson interviews Linus Torvalds about his personality, his engineer's pragmatism, and the creation of Linux and Git. Torvalds also discusses taste in code and why he open sourced Linux.

A Channel 9 conversation recorded at GOTO 2012 between Anders Hejlsberg (TypeScript) and Lars Bak (Dart). They discuss the two languages and different approaches to making JavaScript development safer, including runtime type checking.

In Ars Technica's War Stories, Naughty Dog co-founder Andy Gavin explains how the team squeezed Crash Bandicoot onto the original PlayStation. They overwrote Sony library code in RAM, built custom animation compression, and streamed assets around slow seek times.

A /noclip interview with Tarn Adams of Bay 12 Games about Dwarf Fortress: where the ASCII simulation came from, how it works, and the plans for its Steam release. It includes his telling of the famous bug in which cats were poisoned by alcohol.

A two-hour extended interview in which Crash Bandicoot co-creator Andy Gavin tells how he and Jason Rubin built the game at Naughty Dog. It includes the custom Lisp tools used.

Pat Wyatt, a veteran game programmer who worked at Blizzard and ArenaNet, speaks at HandmadeCon 2015 in a conversation with Casey Muratori. He discusses network code and architecture in games he worked on, including mistakes on Diablo and the success of Guild Wars.

Westwood Studios co-founder Louis Castle talks about how pathfinding was solved in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, in an Ars Technica War Stories episode. It also touches on other challenges in Westwood's RTS games.

IGN plays through the first episode of the original Doom with its creator John Romero providing commentary. Romero shares stories, design secrets and behind-the-scenes details about the levels, including E1M1.

Linus Tech Tips builds a Linux PC together with Linus Torvalds, who talks through parts selection, kernel development and some of his side projects. The conversation also touches on AI in kernel work.

Mike Acton, in a HandmadeCon 2015 interview with Casey Muratori, discusses game engine development, hiring and learning on your own.

Matt Mullenweg joins ThePrimeagen's Twitch stream to discuss the WordPress and WP Engine dispute, including trademark use and contributions.

Developer Voices interviews Chris Lattner about Mojo, a Python-compatible language aimed at CPU/GPU performance built on LLVM and MLIR. It covers performance features, the type system and why Mojo uses Python syntax.

A Google I/O 2014 fireside chat in which members of the Android platform team answer questions about why the platform works the way it does. It is moderated by developer advocate Reto Meier.

A short clip of Steve Jobs describing the computer as a bicycle for the mind. He compares human efficiency of travel to what computers do for mental work.

Myst co-creator Rand Miller recounts how the HyperCard-built game struggled to run on 1x CD-ROM drives. He and his brother Robyn compressed image and audio data heavily to get acceptable performance. Part of Ars Technica's War Stories series.

Curt Jaimungal interviews biologist Michael Levin of Tufts about consciousness, bioelectricity, emergence, and cancer research. The conversation challenges reductionist views of life.

Pixar staff tell the story of how Toy Story 2 was almost deleted from the studio's computers and was saved by a home computer backup.

Lucas Pope, creator of Return of the Obra Dinn, explains in Ars Technica's War Stories how localizing the game's logbook nearly sank the project.

A roughly 14-minute interview with OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt at ruBSD 2013. He talks about making painful changes, getting real feedback, mitigation techniques compared to other OSs, and virtualization.

A WSJ interview in which Apple's Craig Federighi explains Apple's CSAM scanning and child-safety features, including neural hashes and safety vouchers, and defends them against backlash.

A six-minute excerpt from Steve Jobs' 1995 Lost Interview on why a great idea does not automatically become a great product. He says ideas change substantially once you actually build them.

A very long livestream in which Ron Gilbert and Frank Cifaldi look at the making of The Secret of Monkey Island, including its SCUMM source code, which they edit and recompile live.

A Computer History Museum oral history with Avie Tevanian covering his math talent, work on the Mach microkernel at CMU, joining NeXT, leading NEXTSTEP development and the 1996 Apple acquisition.

Linus Torvalds is interviewed at Aalto University in 2012, followed by an audience Q&A. He talks about Linux, kernel development and the desktop, and about Nvidia support. The Q&A has a well-known moment where he is blunt about Nvidia.

A roughly three-hour Lex Fridman podcast conversation with Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python. Topics include Python's design, the GIL, asyncio, the future of programming and AI coding tools.

A 1974 talk-show-style interview with the original developers of APL, including Iverson, Falkoff and Breed. They discuss how the language originated.

A short TFiR clip of Linus Torvalds explaining why he thinks GPLv3 violates what GPLv2 stood for. He describes why he chose GPLv2 for kernel development and his view of the FSF's approach.

Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut talks with Elon Musk right after Musk's 2019 Starship presentation. Musk discusses Starship's design, why SpaceX favors conventional engines over aerospikes, and how deleting parts and processes speeds up development.

A 1979 CBC radio interview in which Ted Nelson tries to explain how computers could serve as tools for thinking and visualizing. The interviewer keeps failing to grasp the idea, and Nelson patiently answers again and again.

Grady Booch interviews John Backus, who led the IBM team that created FORTRAN in 1957, for the Computer History Museum in 2006. Backus describes the development of the first successful high-level language and its compiler. The interview runs 88 minutes.

Bill Atkinson shows and explains his binder of Polaroids taken during Lisa development, documenting how its graphical interface evolved. Recorded at the Computer History Museum.

A short clip of Leo Laporte interviewing Bill Atkinson about developing HyperCard, including his story that the idea came during an LSD experience.